Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Shortly after my visit to Upper Crust Cafe, I decided to try another Fork Fest restaurant — the Sicilian Pasta Kitchen. I chose this place because of the price ($25/person) and the number of options available for each course (3 for appetizer, 6 for entree, 3 for dessert).

The complimentary bread at the beginning of the meal was standard, but I did enjoy the olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip ($0.50). These crusty bread slices also prevented me from starving as I was waiting for the food to come out.

For my appetizer, I had the polpetta di granchio. I just googled the translation and it apparently means "meatball of crab"; the dish was actually two 3 oz crab cakes served with a salad of lettuce, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. This over-sized starter was the first sign that I was in for a crazily over-sized meal. Think about it... a typical steak is 8 oz and I usually order a 6 oz if it's available, so this starter is actually the size of a small entree. I also realized at this point that the meal was going to take a long time because I had to wait over half an hour for the first course.

The entree took another half an hour to arrive. I'm not the type to rush through dinner and I do enjoy chatting over a slow and relaxing meal, but the wait time was difficult to overlook even amidst our conversations. And when the spaghetti con polpette (spaghetti with meatballs) finally came, it looked less than appetizing. A dry spool of spaghetti was topped with a grainy red sauce and four giant meatballs. The sauce was slightly sour but mostly bland, and the meatballs were similarly flavourless. I knew I was eating a lump of ground meat, but I wasn't sure exactly what was in it. It was worse than eating frozen pasta dinners from the supermarket. The first thought going through my mind after the first bite was: "Ok... I don't think I can take more than 3 bites. What am I going to do?" I ended up eating other people's food. Good thing the portions were so big.

The pasta dishes other people ordered turned out to be better. Never assume that spaghetti with meatballs is a safe choice.

I was glad that at least the red velvet cake turned out alright, although the waitress forgot to give me a fork to eat it with until I asked. The flavour was artificial and the texture was a bit too soggy, but it was good as far as artificially flavoured cakes go. In short, it was the type of cake you would expect to find at Costco for cheap. I should also mention that as I was eating it, my chair was lifted behind me and I almost fell forward. I looked back and apparently a waitress was squeezing past my seat with her hands full and had decided to use her butt to push my chair out of the way. I was quite appalled, but not as appalled as when I saw what happened next. Another waitress was setting plates down on a table and accidentally dropped a plate on a customer's chest. Good thing it was a clean plate, but it still looked painful.

Our waitress was attentive throughout the 2-hour-long meal, but that didn't help as the food came out super slowly. I suppose I should be thankful that at least she didn't drop any plates on me. The one thing this place has going for it is the huge huge huge portion sizes. If you eat a lot and couldn't care less if the food is good, then this restaurant is an excellent choice.